[CPAP] Newbie looking for help/opinions please!

[CPAP] Newbie looking for help/opinions please! - Printable Version

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RE: Newbie looking for help/opinions please! - Melman - 08-01-2017

you got it right. Thanks

Your AHI is too high. It should be below 5. Your minimum pressure is too low. It should be closer to the median. /the rapid increase from 4 to 14 must be very disruptive and uncomfortable. A minimum pressure of 8 or 9 would be better. Changing your EPR from 1 to 2 or 3 would reduce the pressure when exhaling. Given that your frequently hitting the maximum of 14 a higher maximum pressure may be required to control your apneas. Let's see what some other forum members recommend.

You also have significant flow limitation problems that may be due to sleeping position. Correcting that is as important as getting the right pressure settings. Sleeping on your side rather than your back will improve flow. Tucking your chin towards your chest will cause significant flow limitation. That can be corrected by the right pillow and/or a soft cervical collar. Buckwheat chaff pillows work well for stabilizing head position. Look for CPAPfit pillow om amazon as an example. That pillow solved the same problem for me. Your probably feeling overwhelmed about now. Let's see what others advise.

I see others beat me to it. consider the pillow or collar. They may be helpful as well.

RE: Newbie looking for help/opinions please! - buckrogers76 - 08-01-2017

Thanks Melman

Will look into the pillow and neck collar thing , makes sense! i do tend to sleep on my sides already so i know where i can improve to help my chances! Smile

Buck

RE: Newbie looking for help/opinions please! - Gideon - 08-01-2017

(08-01-2017, 04:20 PM)buckrogers76 Wrote:
(08-01-2017, 04:06 PM)bonjour Wrote: Welcome to the forum.

I'd set your pressure for 8-16, 4 is clearly too low and all your events are of an obstructive nature. I expect that your pressure will be raised again, but want to see how you react to this setting.

Do you know how to change your settings?

Fred

Hi Fred

Thanks for your response! , in answer to your question i do not know how to change my settings! more importantly with me being in the uk and being monitored by an outpatient dept at a local hospital , will i risk a telling off if i have a dabble with my settings?

I know that they monitor my results from time to time and can make adjustments remotely (my upper pressure was 17 but they lowered it for some reason)

Would i be best contacting them or should i attempt an adjustment myself?

regards

Buck

Thanks Sonic! much appreciated!

You can take what we suggest and ask them to adjust, Tell them that you are consistently above 8 and you are maxing out at 14, wouldn't a range of 8-16 be better?

You can download the Clinician Manual to see for yourself (press both buttons on the front and hold 3-5 seconds shhhhhh) CPAP Clinician Setup Manuals - Change your own CPAP Pressure
If, or more likely when you get frustrated, you can always do it yourself.

RE: Newbie looking for help/opinions please! - trish6hundred - 08-01-2017

Hi buckrogers76,
WELCOME! to the forum.!
Good luck to you with CPAP therapy and getting it dialed in to better meet your needs, you’ve come to the right place for guidance to help you do just that.

RE: Newbie looking for help/opinions please! - buckrogers76 - 08-02-2017

Hi all!

Had a bad night last night! Was awake at 04:20 and snoozed maskless till my alarm at 7am. Feel v tired today. According to the resmed app my ahi was not as bad as usual and overall scored 80 out of 100, the scores on that app certainly don't reflect how I feel!

I managed to access the settings and have adjusted the settings to 8-16 and I've turned off the ramp feature. I have some questions though on the other settings! Is there a guide anywhere on here that explains them or not? I will post my SH data for last night when I get back from work later on. I did have a 2 hour broken nap prior to sleeping last night from 15:30 till 17:30 and I wonder if that impacted my proper sleep? Waiting for the phone to ring from the clinic asking why I've adjusted my settings or not as the case may be!

RE: Newbie looking for help/opinions please! - quiescence at last - 08-02-2017

also check your settings before sleeping again, each night as some machines can be remotely set by the clinic and they might not tell you.

if this were my settings I would also have done the 8 to 16 to see where the sweet spot is. I also would turn EPR on 'full time', and set the EPR to '1'.

I would be expecting that my pressure sweet spot would be somewhere around 12 min and 16 max.

good luck on your journey, and hope you don't get a telling off. at the very least, you now know how to show them your charts, and why you thought it important to change.

QAL

RE: Newbie looking for help/opinions please! - buckrogers76 - 08-02-2017

(08-02-2017, 09:02 AM)quiescence at last Wrote: also check your settings before sleeping again, each night as some machines can be remotely set by the clinic and they might not tell you.

if this were my settings I would also have done the 8 to 16 to see where the sweet spot is. I also would turn EPR on 'full time', and set the EPR to '1'.

I would be expecting that my pressure sweet spot would be somewhere around 12 min and 16 max.

good luck on your journey, and hope you don't get a telling off. at the very least, you now know how to show them your charts, and why you thought it important to change.

QAL

Thanks for the input quiescence! ill be sure to check the machines settings prior to settling down to for the night. My EPR is only set on ramp at the mo so i'll tinker with that setting to!

Regards

Buck

RE: Newbie looking for help/opinions please! - buckrogers76 - 08-02-2017

Anyhow folks as promised here is my SH data from last night! whilst on first appearance it seems good , it was however a much shorter total time and I'm not sure why i was awake as early as that!

[Image: feW8ZeE.png]

RE: Newbie looking for help/opinions please! - buckrogers76 - 08-03-2017

Hi all

Well after adjusting some settings i have started things moving in the right direction. Please can someone have a look over my SH data posted below and give me your thoughts. One thing i have noticed is a shoulder i badly injured a few weeks ago is causing me to wake in pain in order to turn over so that may be having an impact on my overall sleep quality!

Many thanks

Buck [Image: e0GfnLG.png]

RE: Newbie looking for help/opinions please! - methodicalfool - 08-03-2017

I may be "shooting in the dark" here but I recently started using a CPAP machine to treat my "severe" sleep apnea. My results were "ok" but I found myself still fairly tired every day. My brother suggested that I purchase a Pulse Oximeter to check my oxygen levels. What I found was that my oxygen levels were no better with or without the CPAP machine--I'm still not sure why on that. My oxygen levels were dipping as low as 74% and I was spending a lot of time below 88%. So I bought an oxygen concentrator a couple weeks ago and my whole world shifted. I'm suddenly not tired anymore, my oxygen level stays great all night and for whatever reason the number of events I was having per night drastically reduced.

I was about to post about my experience (complete with images showing my results) but since I'm a new member I was told I had to post a few things before I could post any images. So I'm looking for threads I can contribute to until I can post my story, complete with graphs.

Meanwhile, good luck to you!

Jeremy